2020-05-01
N/A
104 min
Writer/Director Bruce Reisman pays homage to the Golden Age of Broadway during the summer of 1948. Inspired by true events, this is the story of private, often forbidden romances of legends from Montgomery Clift to Richard Rodgers, told through the perspective of 24-year-old Sidney Lumet. This special director’s cut adds 12 minutes of previously-unseen footage.
I sometime quite like these rather thinly disguised and experimental looking theatrical movies, and though this is hugely over-scripted, it's still quite an interesting prognostication on just how an illicit relationship between Sidney Lumet and Montgomery Clift might have played out. The former (Aaron Fors) is also the narrator as he befriends the latter (Gavin Adams) after a drunken conversation in an alleyway. What now ensues is heavily stylised and entirely speculative but there is a spark of chemistry between the two men and it does illustrate well the ridiculous lengths men had to go to to cover up their sexuality when it didn't conform to the designs of the studios, the PR men, the press or even the law. Now this is by no means a great production, indeed I think it might have looked better had it stayed within the confines of a stage setting rather than move out into the big bright world, but as a piece of challenging cinema it's not bad at all. No, I probably wouldn't watch it again and the dramatic elements are basic and sometimes downright hammy, but it's still just about worth a watch as an amateur-looking piece of what might pass for Hollywood Babylon!
